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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Early in Poem Three, what is the main character's favorite type of music?

2. Which character(s) run off at the end of Poem Six?

3. What song plays at the beginning of Poem Two?

4. Based on Poem One, what is this play about?

5. In Poem Six, which characters narrate the poem?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where does the lady in blue move to in Poem Eleven? How does she view her new neighborhood? Why does she view it this way?

2. What is the purpose of Poem Seven?

3. Describe the imagery and language in Poem Nineteen. Describe the rage in Poem Nineteen.

4. What reason do the characters give for dancing?

5. What do the final lines of the play represent?

6. What clue(s) does the playwright provide to the audience so that they know Poem One is about African American women?

7. How does the language change at the end of Poem Nineteen? At what point at the end of the play does the language change?

8. What issue is discussed in the final poem?

9. According to the stage directions, how does Sequence Four end?

10. Describe the language and imagery in Poem Thirteen.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why does the playwright choose to craft the narrative of the play out of poems instead of conversational text? What are the pros and cons of using this technique? Please use examples from the book to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

At the end of the play, the lady in brown's final words are, "This is for colored girls who have considered suicide/but are movin to the ends of their own rainbow." What does this statement mean? What do colored girls have to do in order to move "to the ends of their own rainbow"? What is required of them? Please use specific examples from the book.

Essay Topic 3

As the individual women tell where they are located at the start of the play, they bring universality to the script. How does the playwright use the characters to bring universality to the script and show that women like the ones in the play are everywhere? Please use specific examples from the book.

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